According to senior John Lee, an ideal afternoon at Colgate consists of a intramural softball game with his Blue Diamond Society team, watching a few episodes of “Parks and Recreation” or “House of Cards” and dinner with friends at Royal India Grill. However, that’s only if he’s not busy with meetings for Student Government Association (SGA).

“If I have no meetings for SGA that means it’s a rare afternoon and I’m going to be relaxing,” Lee said. 

As the current Vice President of SGA, Lee has had a busy year facing student issues on Colgate’s campus. Lee has constantly worked to increase the awareness of the campus community about issues that impact students from all areas and backgrounds

“It’s a matter of getting the campus community together and really challenging students to think about what it means to be a student in the community here, really making an effort to think about how inclusion can play out in both the classroom and in the actual community,” Lee said. 

Speaking on behalf of SGA as a whole, Lee explained that deeper critical thinking towards inclusion on campus was not something that the staff anticipated to be a major aspect of the work they did this year. However, they appreciated the fact that many students were willing to engage in meaningful discussion in response to distress on campus.

Personally, Lee sees his biggest accomplishment on SGA through the work he did leading efforts to reconstruct the Cruiser schedule. An unreliable Cruiser schedule is something that bothered him since his first year, so he came into his role as Vice President knowing that reorganization was a priority. He worked closely with the Birnie Bus liaison to assess student feedback in order to set up an optimal Cruiser schedule. Since spring break, the Cruisers stop three times an hour instead of one, inefficient miscellaneous stops have been eliminated and more cruisers make stops during peak class times to reduce the wait for students.

Next year, Lee plans to move to Washington D.C. to work for a lobbying firm where he will be conducting strategic communications in hopes of one day working on political campaigns. Although he is excited to embark on a new experience in such a fast paced city, Lee admits that he will miss a few things that are unique to Colgate. 

“I think I’m going to miss the fact that whenever I have some free time or want to see some people, everyone is within such a small radius.” Lee said. “I wish I could do the four years over again, but I’ve had a really great experience and I don’t think I’d trade it.”